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UFS Phoenix
Characters on the warship UFS Phoenix in The Spiral Wars Series, by Joel Shepherd *Key to abbreviations for quote references ** R is Renegade ** DL is Drysine Legacy ** KV is Kantovan Vault ** D is Defiance the starship *UFS Phoenix is “perhaps the most famous warship of the United Forces First Fleet" (R-1) *legendary battle-carrier *built of superior tech, a gift from humanity’s triumvirate allies, the advanced alo species *specs include four combat shuttles with combat grapples starship pilots *Captain Marinol Pantillo: "Pantillo was one of the greatest names in the whole United Forces —the most successful warship captain of the last fifty years, in command of one of the most legendary vessels of the entire Triumvirate War.” (R-1) **“not a big man, tanned with Asian features that he claimed went back to someplace called the Philippines. His hair was greying, and he’d been alive for much of the war — one hundred and twenty seven standard Earth years, a very advanced age considering the reflexes required of a warship captain.” (R-1) **"Pantillo had many friends in Spacer Congress, and had been overlooked for Admiral many times because of his politics. Some talked about political ambitions, about furthering the cause of the Worlders, always unhappy with their under-representation in the corridors of true power." (R-1) *Lieutenant Commander (LC) Erik Debogande — 35 years old. Ten years in service: “I’ve only done three on Phoenix. The other seven years I was staffing, babysitting docks or serving on Firebird. The most action Firebird saw was the occasional solar flare.” (R-2) "As Phoenix’s third-in-command, he was the junior command officer, and thus was responsible for all the things that Commander Huang and Captain Pantillo were too busy to deal with."(R-1) He was the second youngest in Academy history to make warship command, at only 32 yrs old. Smart, cool under pressure, superb pilot, but lacks confidence (in Major Thakur’s opinion): “Don’t suggest it to the LC. Kid struggles for confidence as it is.” ‘Kid’, she realised as she said it. He was three years older than her.” (R, ch. 9) **of mixed descent with ancient ancestry somewhere in Africa, probably. **Father Walker. Mother Alice. Oldest sister Katerina, then Deirdre, Cora, and youngest Lisbeth. Uncle Calvin, a lawyer, Great Great Uncle Thani Gialidis, politician in Spacer Congress, the Commerce Chair, senior on the other two big committees as well. etc. Walker Debogande had also held a Fleet commission, in an earlier phase of the war. (Sat Scan on a weapons hauler.) He’d been Walker Hussain back then, and the third child of Nilsen Hussain, head of one of humanity’s more successful energy companies."(R-2) **Wealthy, influential family: "There goes Lieutenant Commander Erik Debogande, the commentators would say. The second-youngest-ever naval officer to make warship command. And on the legendary UFS Phoenix, of all the vessels to do it on, under one of the greatest Fleet heroes of the war, Captain Marinol Pantillo. Who could possibly believe that this promotion was earned, and not somehow political, given the extraordinary clout and finances of the Debogande family?"(R-1) *Commander Suli Shahaim — the eldest officer in a command position. Erik’s Helm and co-pilot Trace had known Suli Shahaim for as long as she’d known anyone on Phoenix . She’d been Lieutenant Shahaim for that time, Captain Pantillo’s ever-reliable Helm, the old-navy term spacers insisted on using for ‘co-pilot’. Shahaim’s reputation was impeccable, and she was known as one of the most personable officers on the ship. Yet she was rarely seen down here in Assembly, because Shahaim was as spacer as they came, a Fleet officer from a long line of Fleet officers, and while her expertise was legendary, it was all ships, stations and performance specifications” (D) *Lieutenant Draper - brilliant, but young and inexperienced; second shift pilot in command *Lieutenant Dufresne / Giggles - Draper’s helm and co-pilot. “Dufresne was a known Fleet loyalist from a family of loyalists" ® Lieutenant Draper had even better Academy scores than he Erik did, but was green as grass. Lieutenant Prakesh had been second-shift Helm, but had been on PH-2 with Lieutenant Chia and Dean Chong when it was destroyed. That left another Academy whizz-kid, Second Lieutenant Dufresne, as Draper’s Helm and co-pilot. Kaspowitz had said drily that given some encouragement, experience, and a good bedtime story before sleepytime, they’d do fine. ® bridge officers *Lieutenant Wei Shilu — on coms, legal advisor, etc *Lieutenant Angela Lassa — coms on second shift, an expert on tavalai bureaucracy, laws, etc *Lieutenant Kaspowitz / Kaspo — Navigation. Gravity, black holes, hyper space, star systems, etc. Physicist. Trace’s friend. Loved Captain Pantillo. A self-taught student of Spiral history. Twice older than Erik. Tall and lanky with big nose. “Bree was no physicist on the level of Kaspowitz, but all bridge crew knew enough that they could teach it in university, at least.” (D) *Lieutenant Geish — on Scan *Second Lieutenant Jiri — on Scan *Lieutenant Keshav Karle — Arms One. A young man. *Second Lieutenant Bree Harris — Arms Two. A young woman various spacers Engineering Department: *Lieutenant’s Rooke - Chief of Engineering. Young but brilliant *Remy Hale - second-in-command of engineering. Erik’s friend. Intimate with Lieutenant Ahmed Alomaim. “Lisbeth liked Remy Hale —she was short, pretty and easy-going. And she was a good friend of Erik’s, from when Erik had been third-shift commander.”® *Petty Officer Kadi - young man in engineering. Hijacked State Department coms on Gomesh with Lieutenant Dale, etc. *Chenkov / Chenk - infiltrated the Kantovan Vault with Command Squad. “Spacer Chenkov did great credit to the entire Phoenix Engineering crew” (KV) *Tomlinski - Chenkov’s friend in Engineering Medical: *Doc Suelo - ‘Doc’ Suelo ran med bay, technically he was Corpsman Master Petty Officer, but in Fleet tradition for a ship’s senior medico, ‘Doc’ was simpler" (R-8) *Corpsman Rashni / Rash - one of Doc Suelo's five Corpsmen Other Departments: *Spacer Jason / Jace Reddin — midships operations. Badly wounded at Joma Station but rescued by Skah / Furball, Lisbeth, her bodyguard Carla, etc. *Chief Petty Officer Goldman — the ship’s second senior-most enlisted crew. In charge of catastrophic damage to ship. Seventy years in service, cool, composed, at home in space. *Warrant Officer Chau *Warrant Officer Krish “The big dogs who truly ran the ship outside of the bridge, like Chief Petty Officer Goldman and Warrant Officers Chau and Krish...” (D) marine company Phoenix Company has 228 marines: "the entire two hundred and twenty-eight strong Phoenix marine complement"(R-5) Company Roar: 9.9 (billion dead on Earth, killed by krim) *Major Thakur - Trace Thankur. Kulina warrior. Zen Buddhist practitioner. Phoenix Company Commander. Ten years in the corps. Recipient of the Liberty Star. Age 32, three years younger than Erik Debogande. Trace Thakur was a little below average height, had ethnicity going back to a more familiar-sounding Earth-place called ‘India’, and was kind of pretty but in no way delicate. Like all marines, she was the product of the best genetic engineering and bio-synthetic augmentations that money could buy. Unlike most marines, she was Kulina, the elite warriors from the world of Sugauli. Among other things, that meant she didn’t drink or gamble, and as far as anyone knew, hadn’t been screwing around either.(R-2) Command Squad of Eight *"Trace’s command squad of eight including herself" (R-11). Major Thakur. First sergeant Stitch Willis, retired and reinlisted. Sixty-two years of service, on and off. Staff sergeant Gideon /Giddy Kono. Arime. Private Jessica Roland (Skah’s friend). Kumar. Terez. Corporal Edward Rael /Cocky (best-looking) Five Platoons: "Phoenix’s marine company has five platoons, forty-four in each, plus Trace’s own Command Squad of eight, including herself. 228 total (R-5 and 11) *Squads and Sections within Platoons: Charlie Platoon One-Three (as the abbreviation had it for First Squad, Third Section of Charlie Platoon). *three squads of twelve in three sections of four, for thirty-six total. Add an eight man heavy squad for 44 per platoon” (R -11) "Trace rated all of her Lieutenants very highly — Dale at the top, for sheer experience, then Crozier, Zhi and Jalawi about equal in the middle, with Alomaim still a little green, but with enormous potential." Alpha Platoon *Lieutenant Ty Dale - Alpha Platoon leader and Phoenix Company's second-in-command after Major Thakur. "Dale was a thirty year veteran, and had an impressive row of medals on his chest" ® **"tall, blond, and dangerous...Erik had seen the man bite the head off a live tulik in a drinking session. He was a killer, bare-handed or with weapons,or with innocuous everyday items" (R-2) **"Lieutenant Dale, despite his officer’s bars, had started off as a private after a rough childhood on a frontier world, and earned an officer’s commission by still being alive after twenty years in the field."(R-2) *Sergeant Hall — second squad, Private "Benji" Carville. Kaur. Aram. etc. (R-5, 11) *First Squad: Lester ‘Woody’ Forrest (gentleman, former banker until divorce), Cilian ‘Tricky’ Tong, Peter ‘Spots’ Reddy (headed for jail when joined up), etc. *Sergeant Manjhi Bravo Platoon *Lieutenant Ahmed Alomaim - youngest of the platoon leaders. Loves engineer Remy Hale. Brice. Cruz. Charlie Platoon *Lieutenant Jalawi/Skeeta - "Of all Trace’s officers, Jalawi was the most frequently amused" (?) *Graf / Eggs - smart *Lance Corporal Penn of Charlie Platoon, Second Squad, who had been personally escorting Lisbeth when things went bad on Joma Station. He joined at Joma Station with Hoon, Jersey, etc. *Peter Hoon - "A black-clad marine came forward, scarred and weathered, and saluted Trace and Erik. “Master Sergeant Peter Hoon, UFS Walker, UFS Claymore, UFS Five Junctions. Thirty-three years active duty, six years retired, volunteering for service.”(DL) "Sergeant Hoon does play well with others, which is good to know." (D) Delta Platoon *Lieutenant Jasmine Crozier - JC Crozier had been an officer in the marine corps for twelve years, all of them in combat. She’d been posted to Phoenix four years ago, when the previous commander of Delta Platoon had been killed in action. (DL) *Master Sergeant Tim Wong - Crozier's XO *Berg *Corporal Kess Echo Platoon *Lieutenant Chester Zhi - "For simple intellect, Lieutenant Zhi was probably the smartest of platoon commanders...with the rare and alarming habit of reading lots of difficult books and enjoying them. He’d been destined for either high command or a teaching position at the Academy or elsewhere." He has become Stan Romki’s friend and go-to-guy on spiral military history. *Sergeant Kerensky *Vijay Khan - corporal but which platoon? formerly Lisbeth’s bodyguard. “He had done eight years and risen to Staff Sergeant on Dragonfire before losing an arm in combat. That arm was cybernetic now” ® shuttle pilots *PH-1 Lieutenant Hausler - senior pilot, formation leader **co-pilot ensign Julie Yun *PH-2 destroyed *PH-3 Lieutenant Regan Jersey, hotshot, rejoined Phoenix at Joma Station (DL) **co-pilot ensign Singh, the oldest of Phoenix’s shuttle crew *PH-4 Lieutenant Tif - a Kuhsi pilot with fast reflexes **co-pilot Ensign Steve Lee *AT-7 - a civilian shuttle with varied pilots and copilots others *Lisbeth Debogande - Erik’s youngest sister; a recent engineering graduate and occasional pilot for her family’s civilian shuttles. Wealthy, influential family. Father Walker. Mother Alice. Oldest sister Katerina, then Deirdre and Cora, with Lisbeth the youngest. Uncle Calvin, etc. *Jokono - Security for Debogande family; he came with Lisbeth. Formerly chief of investigations on two major trading stations. Old and wise. The interrogator was Jokono, one of Lisbeth’s four security guys. Jokono had been a high level police inspector before joining the personal Debogande security team for a significant pay raise. Interrogation, he’d said, was something of a speciality. ® *Hiroshi Uno - Hiro. Security for Debogande family; he came with Lisbeth. Former spy. “He was United Intelligence...His skillset’s a bit scary” ® *Carla - Lisbeth's bodyguard. Formerly a marine. Big. Tattooed. Married. *Vijay Khan - Lisbeth's bodyguard. Formerly a marine sergeant. Now, Corporal Vijay Khan is a section leader *Professor Stan / Stanislaus Romki -- expert in historical linguistics and xenolinguistic connections *Tif - Kuhsi. A pilot. Skah's mother. *Skah / Furball -- young Kuhsi boy. Tif's son. Heir to Lord bigwig. *Styx - mysterious machine, AI Category:Characters